"What's the radius of his lands? I think if I found out she were in Enemy hands I would travel to the edge of his lands and try to mercy-kill her."

"We have Angband besieged. You could get that close. You have - surprisingly practical instincts, for someone raised to peace."

"My magic told me in great detail what he was doing to his own soldiers."

They cross the bridge and ride into the courtyard.

He lifts her down. "I was reassured that you checked, rather than trusting me it was the right thing to do, but I wouldn't have had you experience that. It doesn't help anything."

"I didn't feel it, I just knew."

"Let's go inside."

"Yeah."

The main hall is lit to dazzling, spectacular Noldorin sensibiliities - colored glass refracting the afternoon sunlight everywhere - and filled with soldiers, armed and armored, watching them on both sides. I'd have gone with a more personal greeting, he grumbles at his father, she's not going to be overawed.

I thought she'd appreciate it, now that she can see all the colors.

Nolofinwë is standing at the head of the hall alone. She wouldn't know what mithril is and won't be impressed by the flashes of light off his clothes.

She appreciates the colors! She appreciates the colors very much. Artist was totally winning out of the things she would have been if she had decided her pain tolerance was too low to be a mage.

"Hello, Your Majesty," she says.

"Hello, Illia," the King says. "Welcome to Eithel Sirion. It sounds like we have a great deal to learn from each other. Would you like to join us for dinner, or are you tired from a long day riding?"

"I'm not too tired. I'm going to be doing more magic than I'm used to, it sounds like, so I'd better set my standards for 'tired' back a bit."

"Then we have a meal prepared for this evening. The lady Hareth of Dor Lómin is here and will be joining us also, so you won't be the only Man at the table, and we can begin discussing how to use your abilities to aid our civilian populations."

"That sounds significantly more pleasant than killing large numbers of orcs, and I do want to make sure the disease problem is being handled, but regardless of my age I do have a strong preference that my talents be used where they can do the most good regardless of whether or not it's where I would be happiest. I don't know that this involves killing orcs, but if it does I want to know."

They both laugh.

"We're excellent atl killing orcs," Fingon says. "It's not likely to particularly hasten the end of the war, which would be a worthy end and one that, as I understand it, learning your magic might help us achieve."

"Good. I...did get the impression, however, that orcs weren't the only things he had...?"

"If your power of instant death worked on Balrogs, that would be very useful, but I'd expect it not to; they're minor deities, not biological beings. The main advantage it would have, if it worked, over our existing abilities is range. Balrogs explode when they die, and kill everything in the vicinity. The Enemy seems to be developing some new monstrosity, one young version of which got loose a few decades ago and ravaged the plains until we drove it back. 

How long would you expect it to take us to have a thousand men trained to your level? You're only twenty-one, you can't have been studying this for that long?"

"I've been actively practicing magic for seven years; I've been learning about it all my life because if you ask most people magic is the whole point of my home country."

"So perhaps twenty years, unless there's an advantage to starting in childhood."

"I think most things benefit from starting in childhood if you can manage it, but you don't have to wait fourteen years from starting to learn theory to getting into serious practice so it should be less than that."

"That's good, since I'd have mixed feelings about acquiring and training up children. It means that in no more than a few decades you'll be able to pursue whatever you feel your specialty is, we'll have enough people with the relevant abilities for war." He sighs. "Why don't we draw up a plan for teaching this to our people, and you take a rest before dinner? Your Grace, is Hareth around now to help find her some appropriate clothes, and -"

The King nods. "We began working out a magic rotation in your absence. You can see what has been done so far."

"Back home little kids could get away with messing with tiny magic that didn't do more than sting but if your parents were encouraging you to do anything bigger than that before you were fourteen people might decide they were mistreating you and take you away so you could be raised by people who wouldn't do that. Practicing magic really wants to wait for adolescence at the earliest. What's wrong with my clothes?" They're perfectly appropriate for her culture, but she doesn't know what this culture does and doesn't consider appropriate.

"It's been two days, and large shares of both were spent running and on horseback."

"Oh." That would do it, yep. Technically they could be cleaned by magic but why would she do that when it can be done by hand and magic hurts. "Makes sense. I should probably bathe, too, and get the tangles out of my hair."

"And draw up a bath for her." Someone's already weaving through the crowd. "I'll send someone for you before dinner."

"Thank you." A chance to soak her muscles is going to be so nice--she's been able to ignore the low-level ache just fine so far, but a hot bath is always good after magic or other exertion.